When I look around at what this program has given to me I would think that I would always be at peace and filled with happiness. Yet in spite of that, I sometimes find myself caught up in what a number of people said they were going through today…resistance.
That of course brings up the past for me. That’s the kind of person I was when I was drinking. And that was what I dragged through these doors with me. My junk. It took a lot of time for me to begin to cut this stuff down to size and start to change myself.
Of course the key to all of this was in those Twelve Steps. But the introduction to these Steps began with the Second. I discovered from my sponsor that I had to first begin to open up to a spiritual way of life. I had to come to believe in a Power greater than myself.
This was part of what was our subjects today. The first was the solution. The second was the Eleventh Step. Appropriate for someone like me and I know for so many others.
When the word “solution” came up two things came to mind. The program itself. The Twelve Steps. The other was the chapter in the BB There Is A Solution. That happens to be one of the most inspiring texts for me. Dr. Carl Jung and Rowland H. It’s what I think what really was the start of this program. The spiritual experience which Jung told the young man he needed, if he wanted to stop drinking. The program uses the term a spiritual awakening. But it really is for me the same thing. I think that’s because the founders were convinced a spiritual experience was bright lights and other things. An awakening was just that. We wake up to the fact that we have been restored to sanity.
So prayer and meditation became part of what I was told I needed to do. And, of course, along with that came resistance from within me. Back and forth over time, as I proceeded in the Steps and the rest of this program. I think I always resisted anything new. Any kind of change. I guess that’s partly because of my ego. I thought I knew it all. And my self centered ego, my desire to control everything had to be deflated in depth. Thank goodness for my sponsor and others, who never hesitated to puncture my ego.
I also think that my emotions get stirred up and my mind thinks things, these improvements, these changes aren’t happening quickly enough. Old stuff keeps popping up. I become impatient. Fear on the one hand and anger on the other become part of what is causing me to resist. Talk about being immature. And a lot of what those old timers used to talk about. Getting control over our emotions. To begin to grow into adulthood and becoming emotionally mature. Bill and others talk about this very thing. Not easy, but do-able. Takes discipline and relying on my Higher Power.
And of course having to learn the truth in what is reality. Nothing ever happens overnight. Time takes time as they say. Again it’s coming to recognize that what I brought into these rooms was less adult and more of a child. Like my sponsor told me that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did. How perfectly right he was. Of course I didn’t like that assessment of me. But somehow I needed to begin to back off and start to grow up for the first time in my life. I know it wasn’t just alcohol that created this derelict. It was the second part of the First Step. That my life was unmanageable. The “human” part of this disease.
I came to learn that I had to sidestep my emotions. To turn them over in the Third Step, the Sixth and Seventh, the Tenth, and eventually the Eleventh. I had to use the Serenity Prayer and others. To accept the fact that I was powerless over many things and had to learn how to have faith and let go and let the God of my understanding do for me what I could not do for myself. I had to learn how to practice patience. I also had to learn that when in doubt how to back off and take a deep breath. To talk and share with others, like a sponsor, for instance. A need for at least a touch of humility.
And I also had to learn how to practice gratitude. To begin to thank my Higher Power for all the help I have been given. Even when I don’t recognize it. And how to express the same gratitude to others like myself, who have supported me through all this time in here.
Anyway, I needed to stop and think about all of this. It’s about staying sober.